What U.S. households spent in 2025
Average yearly spending from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Expenditure Surveys: where the money went, how it changed since 2024, and how it sits next to the 50/30/20 rule. Method shown, CSV included.
Data checked Nov 1, 2026
By Travis Haggar. I build Openbox Money. I'm not a financial adviser.
Drafted with AI help. Updated .
Sources: BLS, Consumer Expenditures--2025 (USDL-26-1619); BLS Consumer Expenditure Surveys glossary. Not financial advice. Spot a mistake? support@openboxmoney.com
- Average spending, 2025
- $81,905
- +4.3% since 2024
- Average income before taxes
- $110,847
- +6.4% since 2024
- Housing's share of spending
- 33.9%
- $27,790 a year
These are averages per consumer unit, the survey's word for roughly a household: a family, a person living alone or sharing a home but paying their own way, or people living together who share major expenses. BLS counted about 138.0 million of them in 2025.
Where the money went, 2025
Swipe the table for change and share.
| Category | 2024 | 2025 | Change | Share of 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All spending | $78,527 (corrected after first publication) | $81,905 | +4.3% (statistically significant) | 100.0% |
| Food | $10,169 | $10,633 | +4.6% (statistically significant) | 13.0% |
| Food at home | $6,224 | $6,491 | +4.3% | |
| Food away from home | $3,945 | $4,142 | +5.0% | |
| Alcoholic beverages | $643 | $630 | −2.0% | 0.8% |
| Housing | $26,266 | $27,790 | +5.8% (statistically significant) | 33.9% |
| Shelter | $16,317 | $17,626 | +8.0% (statistically significant) | |
| Utilities, fuels, and public services | $4,736 | $4,931 | +4.1% (statistically significant) | |
| Household operations | $1,921 | $2,034 | +5.9% | |
| Housekeeping supplies | $877 | $844 | −3.8% | |
| Household furnishings and equipment | $2,414 | $2,355 | −2.4% | |
| Apparel and services | $2,001 | $2,010 | +0.4% | 2.5% |
| Transportation | $13,318 | $13,492 | +1.3% | 16.5% |
| Vehicle purchases (net outlay) | $5,337 | $5,023 | −5.9% | |
| Gasoline and other fuels | $2,645 | $2,503 | −5.4% (statistically significant) | |
| Other vehicle expenses (source changed in 2025) | $4,206 | $4,765 | +13.3% (statistically significant) | |
| Public and other transportation | $1,131 | $1,199 | +6.0% | |
| Healthcare | $6,197 | $6,470 | +4.4% | 7.9% |
| Health insurance | $4,055 | $4,310 | +6.3% (statistically significant) | |
| Medical services | $1,252 | $1,260 | +0.6% | |
| Drugs | $658 | $672 | +2.1% | |
| Medical supplies | $233 | $228 | −2.1% | |
| Entertainment | $3,609 | $4,084 | +13.2% | 5.0% |
| Personal care products and services | $978 | $986 | +0.8% | 1.2% |
| Reading | $125 | $114 | −8.8% | 0.1% |
| Education | $1,569 | $1,583 | +0.9% | 1.9% |
| Tobacco products and smoking supplies | $352 | $365 | +3.7% | 0.4% |
| Miscellaneous | $1,210 (corrected after first publication) | $1,335 | +10.3% | 1.6% |
| Cash contributions | $2,292 | $2,237 | −2.4% | 2.7% |
| Personal insurance and pensions | $9,797 | $10,175 | +3.9% | 12.4% |
Average dollars a year per consumer unit, in each year's own dollars (not adjusted for inflation), as BLS printed them in Tables 1 and 2. Indented rows are parts of the category above; BLS lists more parts than shown here. * BLS marks the change as statistically significant at the 95% confidence level; changes without it may be sampling noise. † BLS corrected these 2024 figures after first publishing them: all spending was $78,535 and miscellaneous $1,218 in the 2024 release. ‡ BLS moved part of this item to a different survey in 2025, which contributed to the rise. Shares may not add to 100% because of rounding.
Next to the 50/30/20 rule
The 50/30/20 rule is a popular starting point for a budget: about half of take-home pay for needs, 30% for wants and 20% for savings and paying down debt. The survey can't test it directly, for two reasons:
- BLS doesn't sort spending into needs and wants.
- The rule works from pay after taxes, and BLS no longer publishes average income after taxes (it stopped with the 2024 data), so these tables give no take-home figure to divide by.
What the figures do show: housing, food, transportation and healthcare, the four categories budgets often count as essentials, came to $58,385 on average, or 71.3% of all spending (our arithmetic on BLS's amounts). That's a share of spending, not of pay, and it's generous to “needs”: food includes restaurants, and transportation includes buying vehicles. Housing alone was 33.9%, about a third.
“Personal insurance and pensions” (12.4%) holds Social Security contributions, which come out of pay before take-home pay, along with retirement contributions and life and other non-health insurance. Only the retirement part resembles the rule's savings slice, and the release doesn't show it separately. Paying down debt on things already bought isn't counted as spending at all.
Averages hide a wide spread, so one household's split can look nothing like these.
By income, 2025
BLS ranks consumer units by income before taxes and splits them into five groups of about the same size.
| Income group | Average spending | Average income before taxes | Income range |
|---|---|---|---|
| All consumer units | $81,905 | $110,847 | All incomes |
| Lowest fifth | $37,935 | $18,125 | Under $32,623 |
| Second fifth | $51,405 | $46,080 | $32,623 to under $60,056 |
| Middle fifth | $68,983 | $78,584 | $60,056 to under $99,007 |
| Fourth fifth | $92,250 | $126,349 | $99,007 to under $160,635 |
| Highest fifth | $159,512 | $286,188 | $160,635 and up |
Source: BLS, Table 3 (2025 only); income ranges from the lower bounds in the release's technical note. The survey asks about income and spending separately, and in the lowest fifth average spending is higher than average reported income; BLS's release doesn't break that gap down, and neither do we.
Method
Every amount, share and change on this page is copied as printed from BLS's release Consumer Expenditures--2025 (USDL-26-1619), published Oct 29, 2026, and checked against it on Nov 1, 2026. The figures we worked out ourselves are the essentials total and its share of spending, in the 50/30/20 section, labelled where they appear. The income ranges are BLS's lower bounds set out as ranges.
- The Census Bureau collects the Consumer Expenditure Surveys for BLS: an interview about larger and regular expenses, repeated each quarter, and a two-week diary of smaller, frequent purchases like food. Spending includes sales taxes and gifts, and leaves out business costs.
- Each figure is the average across all consumer units, including those that spent nothing in a category. It isn't what a typical household spends: a few large amounts can pull an average up.
- Income before taxes is money earned and certain other money received in the 12 months before the interview.
- Changes compare the 2025 survey with the 2024 one, in each year's own dollars. Over the same period consumer prices (CPI-U) rose 2.6%.
- Because of the 2025 lapse in federal funding, the Census Bureau couldn't collect the surveys in October and November 2025. BLS estimated the missing months by adjusting the survey's weights; collection resumed on December 5, 2025. BLS expects estimates of 2025 spending “will be accurate with increased variances due to the smaller sample size” (BLS's note).
Limits
The surveys are a sample, so every figure is an estimate with a margin of error. They describe 2025 across the whole country, not any one place or household; BLS publishes new figures about once a year. This page is for understanding, not a target for any budget, and it isn't financial advice.
Sources
- Consumer Expenditures--2025, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Oct 29, 2026: Tables 1, 2 and 3 and the technical note.
- Consumer Expenditure Surveys glossary (consumer unit, income, spending) and the full BLS tables.
- Our download: household-spending-bls-ce-2025.csv (income, total spending, each category and the parts shown, with 2024, 2025, the change, BLS's significance mark and the 2025 share).
- Free money tools that run in your browser.